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A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

president.mit.edu

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Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#441

Post by [deleted] »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #425
greenie_beans wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm from there and there are so many people trying to fix it. somehow you lived there so long and didn't realize this fact, bless your heart. (this is helping prove my point btw) who in mississippi is blaming california for their problems, other than state politicians who think that is effective political rhetoric? all of the voters i know can read past that BS even if we have different political ideology. idk this i…

How is it condescending to say that Mississippi should just do its own thing and we don't have to bother ourselves with their choices? I feel like we are in a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation. Whatever we say, or even if we say nothing, will be seen in Mississippi as being condescended to. Just us existing is seen as condescended. This is why we should just give up, we do our thing and they do their thin…

[deleted]

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#442

Post by mswphd »

codybontecou wrote: post #342
999900000999 wrote: post #223

It's ok. The top colleges are arguably now in China. China is providing free education in many poor African countries. Chinese is one of many subjects offered. Of course, a smart African college student will have no issue learning English, Chinese, as well her home countries language. The future belongs to China. We're elevating fine institutions such as Liberty University and celebrating comedians and edge lords. Ch…

What are some of the Chinese colleges worth paying attention to? Is most of the AI research coming from these colleges or are they primarily from private labs?

CSrankings.org is a (flawed for sure, but still) ranking of the research output of various graduate institutions. China has 3 of the top 10 ranked universities according to this ranking.

https://csrankings.org/#/index?all&world

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#443

Post by dekhn »

drapado wrote: post #365
jasonhong wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science... Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career. The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic. A PhD is more like an apprenticeship, where you develop and refine your skills, your background knowledge in your area of…

Are those PhDs being paid with a decent salary? If not, I can’t agree with your statement. PS. I did my PhD in an EU country where it’s treated as another researcher job with salary and benefits

PhD candidates in the US usually get somewhere between $25K and $50K stipend, also some level of benefits (typically health care). Sometimes there is a tuition waiver (student does not need to pay grad program tuition).

In my case I was making $32K/year with a tuition waiver and health benefits around ~2000, in SF, which was barely enough to rent a shared apartment and eat food. The only way I could rationalize it is that I was maximizing my future freedom (job choice).

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#444

Post by pbhjpbhj »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #220
potbelly83 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education yes, research unfortunately no. I'm not saying research outside of academia is not possible, I'm just saying it's not taken seriously and this needs to change. We really do need to go back to the 19th century model of the researcher gentleman.

YouTube and Patreon have done wonders for rebooting the modern research gentleman field. I follow a dozen YouTubers doing extremely niche, cutting edge, science. It is progressing beyond 'backyard science'.

Care to share any that people here might like to follow?

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#445

Post by BeetleB »

jasonhong wrote: post #335
tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

Speaking as someone who has graduated over a dozen PhD students in computer science... Yes, it is possible to complete a PhD in 3-4 years, but it's not really good for your career. The bar our department sets for a PhD is that at the end of it, you should be a world expert in your specific topic. A PhD is more like an apprenticeship, where you develop and refine your skills, your background knowledge in your area of…

A very US-centric perspective. Whereas the folks in Europe do it in 3-4 years, come to the US and do a 2-3 year postdoc (with higher pay than a PhD student), and are ahead of their American peers.

Also, depending on where you do it in Europe, the pay as a PhD student is higher. At the extreme end, I knew students getting paid $60K/year in one country, while I was getting $24K/year in the US.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#446

Post by cucumber3732842 »

magicalist wrote: post #298
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? How's that any different than everyone in Buffalo just having to bend over and take it because NYC and Albany want to do spreadsheets and services instead of factories? No state is a monolith.

That's exactly the point. It makes no sense to say maybe if New York went off and was its own country it'll finally not be so divided.

I mean it'd be less divided insofar as the minority would be more thoroughly subjugated by the state. No pesky federal government getting in the way. Though that's probably not a good thing.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#447

Post by overfeed »

intrasight wrote: post #364
divbzero wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I’m aware of? Most PhD grads not staying academia seems to be a long-running phenomenon. The number of permanent academic positions simply does not match up against the number of PhD grads.

Some disciplines are much better at managing the PhD admissions to match the job opportunities. Philosophy for example. But I don't think that's done with most science PhDs. Is that because of a culture of exploiting cheap labor?

> Is that because of a culture of exploiting cheap labor?

It's not just a culture; there is a lot of government and industry grant money funding (and enabling) the exploitation in the sciences. If applied philosophy is found to be productizable and/or beneficial to National Interest, the same exploitation would grow in Philosophy departments.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#448

Post by Levitz »

j_maffe wrote: post #95
epolanski wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there's less competition and opportunities for talent the whole community, globally, is impacted. There's really nothing good about it.

That's very funny because up until very recently there was very little competition because one nation was dominating research using talents from other countries. Consider it as a weakening of a monopoly

You say that as if talent was kidnapped and dragged against their will.

People go to the US because of an abundance of infrastructure and money. Which now goes down.

It's a loss.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#449

Post by BeetleB »

pcurve wrote: post #346
tasty_freeze wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work with a brilliant and humble guy. He got accepted to MIT at 14, but his parents made him go to community college for a year to give him a little more time to mature. He then went to MIT and graduated after three years, then went to Berkeley and got a masters in one year, then went to Stanford and it took six years to get his PhD? Why? Because his advisor milked him for his work. She had a pile of papers…

your friend should make a blog post about that. People like that should be exposed.

Not much to expose. Go to any top department in the US, and there will be a handful of them. It's not exactly a secret.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#450

Post by [deleted] »

999900000999 wrote: post #223

It's ok. The top colleges are arguably now in China. China is providing free education in many poor African countries. Chinese is one of many subjects offered. Of course, a smart African college student will have no issue learning English, Chinese, as well her home countries language. The future belongs to China. We're elevating fine institutions such as Liberty University and celebrating comedians and edge lords. Ch…

[deleted]
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